YUI Library Examples: Menu Family: Website Left Nav With Submenus From JavaScript

Begin by placing the markup for the two-column Grid on the page (this example uses the Grids Preset Template 1, 160px left). Next add the Menu markup for the root Menu instance to the left column of the grid.

Use the onContentReady method of the Event utility to instantiate the Menu as soon as its markup is available for scripting.

This Menu instance makes use of several configuration properties. Setting the "autosubmenudisplay" configuration property to "true" modifies its default behavior so that mousing over any item in the Menu automatically triggers the display of its submenu. The "hidedelay" configuration property is set to "750" so each submenu automatically hides 750ms after the user's mouse has left the menu. Lastly, the "lazyload" property is set to "true" to help speed up the initial load time of the Menu instance by deferring the initialization and rendering of each submenu until just before it is initially made visible.

Submenus are added to each item in the Menu by subscribing to the "beforeRender" event and setting the "submenu" configuration property of each MenuBarItem instance to an object literal containing the necessary data to create the submenu.

/*
     Define an array of object literals, each containing 
     the data necessary to create a submenu.
*/

var aSubmenuData = [

{
        id: "communication", 
        itemdata: [ 
            { text: "360", url: "http://360.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Alerts", url: "http://alerts.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Avatars", url: "http://avatars.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Groups", url: "http://groups.yahoo.com " },
            { text: "Internet Access", url: "http://promo.yahoo.com/broadband" },
            {
                text: "PIM", 
                submenu: { 
                            id: "pim", 
                            itemdata: [
                                { text: "Yahoo! Mail", url: "http://mail.yahoo.com" },
                                { text: "Yahoo! Address Book", url: "http://addressbook.yahoo.com" },
                                { text: "Yahoo! Calendar",  url: "http://calendar.yahoo.com" },
                                { text: "Yahoo! Notepad", url: "http://notepad.yahoo.com" }
                            ] 
                        }
            
            }, 
            { text: "Member Directory", url: "http://members.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Messenger", url: "http://messenger.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Mobile", url: "http://mobile.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Flickr Photo Sharing", url: "http://www.flickr.com" },
        ]
    },

{
        id: "shopping", 
        itemdata: [
            { text: "Auctions", url: "http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Autos", url: "http://autos.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Classifieds", url: "http://classifieds.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Flowers & Gifts", url: "http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:Flowers%20%26%20Gifts:20146735" },
            { text: "Real Estate", url: "http://realestate.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Travel", url: "http://travel.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Wallet", url: "http://wallet.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Yellow Pages", url: "http://yp.yahoo.com" }                    
        ]    
    },
    
    {
        id: "entertainment", 
        itemdata: [
            { text: "Fantasy Sports", url: "http://fantasysports.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Games", url: "http://games.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Kids", url: "http://www.yahooligans.com" },
            { text: "Music", url: "http://music.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Movies", url: "http://movies.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Radio", url: "http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast" },
            { text: "Travel", url: "http://travel.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "TV", url: "http://tv.yahoo.com" }              
        ] 
    },
    
    {
        id: "information",
        itemdata: [
            { text: "Downloads", url: "http://downloads.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Finance", url: "http://finance.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Health", url: "http://health.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Local", url: "http://local.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Maps & Directions", url: "http://maps.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "My Yahoo!", url: "http://my.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "News", url: "http://news.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Search", url: "http://search.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Small Business", url: "http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com" },
            { text: "Weather", url: "http://weather.yahoo.com" }
        ]
    }                    
];

// Subscribe to the Menu instance's "beforeRender" event

oMenu.subscribe("beforeRender", function () {

if (this.getRoot() == this) {

this.getItem(0).cfg.setProperty("submenu", aSubmenuData[0]);
        this.getItem(1).cfg.setProperty("submenu", aSubmenuData[1]);
        this.getItem(2).cfg.setProperty("submenu", aSubmenuData[2]);
        this.getItem(3).cfg.setProperty("submenu", aSubmenuData[3]);

}

});

/*
     Call the "render" method with no arguments since the 
     markup for this Menu instance is already exists in the page.
*/

oMenu.render();

Finally, it is necessary to set the "position" CSS property of the root Menu instance's element (<div id="#productsandservices">) to "static" to match that of the "position" configuration property.

Menu Family Examples:

More Menu Family Resources:

All YUI 2.x users should review the YUI 2.8.2 security bulletin, which discusses a vulnerability present in YUI 2.4.0-2.8.1.